Botancial classification/cultivar designation: Impatiens hawkeri cultivar Kicabo.
The present Invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of New Guinea Impatiens plant, botanically known as Impatiens hawkeri, and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name Kicabo.
The new Impatiens is a product of a planned breeding program Inventor in Gensingen, Germany. The objective of the breeding program is to develop new compact Impatiens cultivars with interesting and unique flower and foliage colors.
The new Impatiens originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor of a proprietary Impatiens hawkeri selection identified as code number W90, not patented, as the female, or seed parent, with a proprietary Impatiens hawkeri selection identified as W662, not patented, as the male, or pollen parent. The cultivar Kicabo was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled environment in Gensingen, Germany in April, 1998.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by terminal cuttings taken at Gensingen, Germany, since the summer of 1998, has shown that the unique features of this new Impatiens are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.
The following traits have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be the unique characteristics of xe2x80x98Kicaboxe2x80x99. These characteristics in combination distinguish xe2x80x98Kicaboxe2x80x99 as a new and distinct Impatiens cultivar:
1. Rounded, upright and compact plant habit.
2. Freely branching growth habit; bushy appearance.
3. Small dark green-colored foliage.
4. Freely flowering habit with flowers held above and beyond the foliage.
5. Small white-colored flowers.
Plants of the new Impatiens differ from plants of the parent selections primarily in flower color and plant growth habit.
Plants of the new Impatiens can be compared to plants of the cultivar Moorea, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,147. In side-by-side comparisons conducted in Gensingen, Germany, plants of the new Impatiens differed from plants of the cultivar Moorea in the following characteristics:
1. Plants of the new Impatiens were more compact than plants of the cultivar Moorea.
2. Plants of the new Impatiens had smaller flowers than plants of the cultivar Moorea.